


BLIGHT

by aizawhat



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Angst, Anxiety, Autism, Character Death, Character Loss, Depression, Dimension Travel, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Fiction, Fighting, Fluff, Heroes & Heroines, Heroes to Villains, Hiking, Humour, Implied Relationships, Kings & Queens, LGBTQ Themes, Love, M/M, Magic, Magic Users, Mental Health Issues, Mind Manipulation, Multi, Murder, OCs - Freeform, Original Fiction, PTSD, Prophecy, Rebellion, Rebellions, Rebels, Royals, Sexual Assault, Swearing, Trans rights, Travel, Unhealthy Relationships, Villains, mature themes, please i tried so hard on this, powers, realtionships, such as, thanks for reading the tags these took me forever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-13 04:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21488629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aizawhat/pseuds/aizawhat
Summary: The world hasn't seen chaos and suffering like this for 700 years. Rebellions from four districts are falling apart, countless lives have been lost. It is prophesised that only seven people and their dormant powers can save them, and bring peace to the six districts by ending the bloodline of the King. Newt and Aether discover that this rumour isn't all the bullshit it's cracked up to be.





	1. 1 - Lily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meet Lily, looking desperately for her freedom.

Lily dreamt of this day. Every single night. These people could stop everything she did— walking, talking, leaving, smiling, breathing— but they couldn't stop her dreaming. Dreaming of fields and fresh air and sunsets and the tops of mountains— anything and everything she had been craving for years. The air in jail smelled stale and sweaty and smoky, it never changed. She couldn't remember the last time she smiled or was genuinely nice to another human being. All she did was snarl and snap and spit sarcastic shit at everyone she spoke to. It wasn't a nice way to live. She didn't want to be like that. She wanted to be Lily again. Funny and creative and snarky. Nowadays, she felt like a wilted rose. All thorns and no pretty red petals.

Growing up in a rural area wasn't easy but it certainly wasn't awful. Lily grew up in a little white cottage down a country road, in a school of just under 200 kids, and had only one friend. Well, if you didn't count little Madison, which she didn't. It was lonely sometimes, but her best friend made her whole and warm. They spent every day together, at school and at home, Lily was close to his parents just like she was with hers. For years, Lily and her best friend were known as the troublemakers of their little town, everyone had heard of the time they smashed a shop window after running into it, or rode an inflatable raft down a little river running through town. But things sharply went sour as they approached their teen years. Lily found it hard to admit, or even think about what happened. Even picturing her old friend's name made her feel sick to her stomach, it was like swallowing something bitter and slimy. She didn't dare speak it. It was like the mere mention of him would summon him. Summon hell upon them all.

Years of dreaming of this glorious moment didn't prepare her for it in the slightest. Walking out of those haunting metal gates, a free woman, finally. She never cried in her dreams, didn't even wake up crying, she was just happy. It lit her way in the dark cell. But now she was crying. Real tears, of joy maybe, she wasn't sure yet. The wind on her face made the tear tracks cold and stung her face. The clouds were grey and about as lifeless as her. It'd probably start to rain soon. But it felt so good just to be walking down the path. The gates opened before her, slowly and jerkily. An officer stood next to her, waiting for them to open. She asked Lily a question but it fell on deaf ears, her excitement was rising up in her like vomit. She didn't want to wait for them to open completely, so slipped through the crack between the two as soon as it was possible.

In her dreams, she saw her sister. Little Madison. Still her little baby sister, coming to pick her up with a bright smile and a bright future and bright eyes and she would just light Lily's way out of the dark. She'd take her hand and they'd go home, back to the countryside.

But, no. She knew that things changed outside of the prison, just not the full extent of how they did. What she was met with was a thin and pale woman, her hair messily tied up in a style Lily couldn't even recognise. She was cradling a screaming child, and looked like she hadn't slept in weeks. But she was smiling at least. She looked happy.

Her freckles were still there. So were her beautiful eyes— they had lost their light but they were still so cute. The bags under her eyes were huge.

"Maddie," Lily's voice was a raw rasp, like a grater on the ears. Crying made her like that. Emotion made her like that. "Hey. Thanks for picking me up."

"Anything for you, Lil," Her sister had the same sweet voice, though it was dripping with fatigue, "I wanted to see you. It's been so long."

Their parents, frankly, were not happy about Lily's arrest. They hadn't seen each other since Lily's trial. And she didn't plan on seeing her parents ever again after that fiasco. The change in her little sister was staggering - admittedly, she got a bit lightheaded in that moment.

The child in Madison's arms had started to quieten but Lily sobbed harder. She could hardly get words out now. "I know, I know," She sniffled, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't expect any of this to—"

"Oh shush, shush, I've heard all of this before." Madison let out a wet laugh, as if she would start to cry too, gesturing to the car behind her. It was definitely on its last legs. Or rims. Or whatever. The black paint was matte and obviously old. The metal bits on the tyres (Lily didn't know what the hell they were called) were rusted orange. "Now, get in. I have so much to tell you."

The older woman dried her tears, at the same time brushing loose brown strands of hair from her face, and got into the car. Her sister took the time to fasten the tot into its car seat at the back, then got into the driver's seat. Lily struggled with her seat belt. Her shaking hands made her have to make a few attempts at getting the belt fastened.

They both sat, in silence for a moment, hardly believing that they were finally there. Lily's freedom.

"Um, her name is Queenie," Madison said, through the silence. She started the car, then took a moment to look into the rear-view mirror and fix her frizzy hair. "My daughter. Queenie McMillan."

"Your— Fuck."

"Mmhm."

"I missed a whole daughter."

"Two whole years of her. And a messy relationship with the guy that owned the bar in the town next to ours. Do you remember him? Dad worked with him for a little while."

"Wait... David? David... Birch?" Eugh. That guy was a dick. He was in the year above Lily in school and he was a total control freak.

"Mmmmmhm."

"I never liked that guy."

The whole car ride was conversation like this. Just things about Madison's life that had changed. She was a woman now, for a start. And a young, single mother. Certainly a large change that Lily wished she hadn't missed. She wished it so, so hard, but no matter how much she wished, it didn't come true. Of course it wasn't. Lily's life had never been lucky, at all in fact. If it was, she wouldn't have gone to jail. Wouldn't be in Madison's car with her fatherless child.

She still felt ghostly handcuffs on her wrists. But every time she looked down, afraid she'd see metal cuffs around her pale wrists and wake up in her cell again, there was nothing there. It was just her imagination. Just her imagination. She was free. She was FREE. It was over now. Sure, getting back on her feet might be a struggle, but she had Madison to support her for the time being, bless her sweet soul. A job would be first. Maybe some therapy? Maybe a girlfriend if she could manage. Her own place to call home... Near Maddie hopefully. And a cat. The perfect life. She was in her twenties now, but it was all still achievable, just in her reach.

After a lengthy conversation about what movies she'd missed ("There are /more/ Star Wars movies? How?"), the rumbling in Lily's stomach got a little too loud for her to keep passing it off as nothing. She let out a sigh. Watching the city buildings pass by and studying the people that were walking to and fro on the pavement wouldn't distract her any longer. "Hey, sorry Maddie, can we stop for something to eat?" She asked, her voice hesitant.

Not even pausing to consider an answer, the younger replied, "'Course we can. There's a fast food place just down the street from here. I'll pay, obviously."

"I'll owe you."

"Don't be stupid, Lil. It's just a meal." Her kind heart hadn't changed in the slightest. It made Lily wonder the extent of the stuff she /had/ missed. Did she miss Madison getting her heart broken? What had led to her looking like such a mess? Her soft heart made her so vulnerable... And Lily hadn't been around to protect her. That was meant to be her role as big sister. All she ever wanted to do when they were young was lunge at the kids that even dared give Maddie a dirty look. She was always the sister with the sword.

Now, she was just the sister with a criminal record.

The car came to a halt in a car park, where the larger buildings were becoming more scarce, and a couple of housing estates could be seen in the distance.

Madison went into the glove compartment of her car, reaching across Lily to do so. She procured a beige purse, quickly flicking through it and pulling out two notes. "Here you go, Lil. Go inside and order whatever looks good, get some ice cream too if you want. Actually, make it two, I'm sure Queenie would like one. Wouldn't you, honeybun? You can share with mumma, too." She turned around in her seat to grin at the tiny baby, and Queenie squealed, even though Lily was sure she had absolutely no idea what Madison was saying.

The younger looked to her sister, smiling gently. She pointed out the window at a little fast food place at the end of the street aside the car park. "It's just there. Hurry back, I need to get you home." Home... Now that was a nice concept. "I'm not leaving Queenie in the car in this neighbourhood, so you're on your own, Lil." 

She knew that, anyway. She'd known it for years. "'S fine." Popping open the car door, Lily stepped out, looking down at the two notes in her hand. Even money had changed... Jeez. She knew things would be different, but not something as trivial as money. Waving to the tiny brown-haired baby in the backseat, Lily walked from the car onto the pavement, down the street.

There was an alleyway off the street, and she glanced down it out of pure curiosity. Nothing there except some bins, black bags of mystery stuff and some nice graffiti against the back wall.

She froze, doing a double-take.

The graffiti was moving.

It definitely was, she stared at it a long time. At first it just looked like a nice design, but as she stared she noticed it was a slow swirling mass of blues, reds and purples. It was like a stained glass window. And she could swear... She could /swear/ she saw a figure standing behind the mystery shape. It was a large oval... Big enough for her to see the entire person behind it. It was so odd... Mindless, she walked towards the back wall, no longer able to see Madison's old car in the corner of her eye. The smell of the alley was sour and old, disgusting, but she didn't atop in her tracks, and in fact sped up, her hand outstretched to touch the purple, red and blue oval. It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, she'd seen a few in her youth, although she didn't like them all that much.

As she approached, it only became more detailed and mesmerising. She wasn't seeing things. Was she being hypnotised? Her hand touched the middle of the shape, finally. It felt cool to the touch, like cold water. Nothing like glass, in fact, because she could push her hand right through. Whatever was on the other side was cold and dry, definitely not just water.

She felt someone's warm hand grab her own.

— She turned at the sound of her sister calling her name, panicked, but suddenly, everything was gone, dissolved into purple, blue and red.


	2. 2 - Audrey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meet Audrey, an adrenaline junkie that can't find anything quite exciting /enough/ to write about.

Something so beautiful should never be destroyed.

A path carved by feet— A trail of dead grass and ashy, crumbled stone led up to the heavenly views. Carved by feet like the mountains were carved by God. Something so beautiful has its own flaws— paths blocked off by fences were so worn that walking there was prohibited. Like battle scars from a war far gone.

Clothes stuck to her skin, her sweat like glue. A disgusting image. She was halfway now, halfway to heaven. Half an hour ago, she was sitting on a rock, drinking some tea from a flask, taking deep breaths of the thin air. Ten minutes ago, she was forced to tie her hoodie around her waist, the sticky sweat becoming too much for her. 

Now, her sweaty arms were just cold. Her hoodie was slipping a little bit— it was halfway down her hips. Having to keep adjusting it wasn't convenient at all, and her backpack was bursting at the seams as it was. The sun was out but she was cold and sweating and her throat hurt a little, she just noticed.

The climb to heaven was never said to be an easy one, was it? She continued. Her feet slipped sometimes on the scar of the mountain, so she moved to the grass, but after a while, the ashy grey stone was all that was left. Thin soils at the top didn't allow growth. The scar was now the easiest option.

The relief. It had been steep. It let her breathe when she was on flat ground. Not daring look behind her, she dropped her bag at a ledge and let out a long, long breath. Maybe a sigh. A sigh of joy. On top of the world.

She loved this. The view, the height, the cold, the sun. Even the sweat. Just not as much. Heaven was on earth, and this was it, the point closest to the sky. A mountaintop after climbing for hours. Right on the edge, she looked down. Even the drop would be beautiful. Another stairway to heaven.

But no, she wasn't scaling it today. Maybe another day, she was staying at the foot of the mountain for a few more days, so had plenty of time to take in her surroundings and exploit the danger in them. How fun!

She craved to write, craved to recount, to recite, and as she closed her eyes, her hand itched. But her muscles ached, so she waited a while. Just standing there, taking it in.  
It would have been so, so much easier to write a memoir if she had started to write it as soon as she could copy a word onto paper. It would look like chicken scratch, but at least it would be real. Real, real events instead of glimpses of events slapped together in a timeline filled in by old, greying parents. 

'Audrey Swan: The Adventure' would not be a worldwide success, of course it wouldn't. It was her life, her adventures to every corner of the world, and every continent— twice. But it wasn't Harry Potter. It wasn't Percy Jackson. It was Audrey Swan. An equally brilliant name, a name she'd always loved, of course. But nobody wanted to read about a random woman's mountain climbing and daredevil stunts. Nobody wanted to hear about her adventures. There wasn't any action or magic— she had a dog, back at her parent's house, but that was it. Only that and her descriptions of the beautiful landscapes she visited. Audrey was not going to be known. She wasn't known.

But she knew there was a story deep inside her. One of magic and adventure, one she'd never be on but one she could dream of. She found it hard to write things she'd never seen herself, she was never the most creative person. All she could do was recount the experiences of Audrey Swan, straight from her own eyes.

Ah, her name may not be famous, but this view could certainly be. The sun rising slowly, slowly, so slowly she couldn't see it, but every time she looked away and looked back it had moved. Splitting the sky, with one end a dull, dying blue, and the other a sparkling, dazzling pink and orange. It was unfortunate she couldn't stare right at it. Not for long, anyway.  
She only ripped her eyes away from the breath-taking view when there was a loud noise behind her. At first, she brushed it off as being some other people climbing the mountain. But nobody had been with her, behind her or at the top when she arrived. Fear spiked her insides, it sounded a little like rock breaking now that she thought about it, but when she turned there was no shift in the rock.

Another scar, this time in the air. Or in the sky? Reality? It was bright red, blue, purple, red, blue, purple, flickering and fading into different colours randomly. It was opening up. Quickly. There was something - /someone/ - on the other side, outstretching their hand, almost breaching the other side of the scar in the air. She forced herself not to care, and to simply get away. What in God's name was that? It had opened so far she couldn't dash around it. She was trapped on the ledge, no escaping. There was only one direction, and she didn't even fully realise she was taking it until she did.

— She was falling.


End file.
